"Dear, who can that funny old fogie be!" exclaimed Folly, as she caught sight of grave Mr. Learning.
"Who may you be, and what are you doing?" asked Learning, with less politeness than he usually showed to ladies.
"You don't mean to say that you've never heard of me!" cried Folly, her words bubbling out fast like water out of a bottle; "you must be Mr. Ignorance, if you don't know that I'm Mademoiselle Folly, the most particular friend of lovely Lady Fashion, and the inventress of tight-lacing, steel-hoops, hair-powder, masks, periwigs—"
"Flattened heads, blackened teeth, nose-rings, lip-rings, and tattooing," added Mr. Learning, remembering the account of a tribe of savages which he had been reading that morning.
"And as to what I am doing," continued Miss Folly, taking up her pipe, which she had laid down on the entrance of a stranger, "I'm very usefully employed: I'm furnishing the cottage of Miss Matty Desley."
"Furnishing!" exclaimed Mr. Learning in surprise, as Miss Folly, with distended cheeks, commenced blowing another bubble.
Folly was too busy at that moment to reply, even her tongue for a while was silent; but after she had succeeded in filling a big bubble, and had loosened it from the pipe with a gentle shake, she vouchsafed a little explanation.
"Yes, I'm furnishing the cottage with fancies; their poetical name is day-dreams, cheap, elegant bubble-fancies."
"You must take me for an idiot!" exclaimed Mr. Learning; "no one in his senses could ever dream of furnishing a house with bubbles!"
Miss Folly was so intently gazing after the ascending bubble that she seemed to forget even the presence of the sage. As the airy globule ascended, she began pouring forth a stream of disconnected nonsense, seeming to speak merely for her own pleasure, as her words could certainly not be intended for the information of any listener.